“Initially, all I had was a piece of paper with a few names and huge gaps in what was a pathetic looking family tree. My first step in filling in the blanks was to send off information requests, to many family members. When my Dad received his request, he was prompted to call me; with what he thought was a family “bombshell”. The man my Grandmother was married to – whom we called Grandpa Fred was not my biological grandfather! Then who was? Please join me on a journey that began in the garment district in Toronto in the early 1930s and ends in 19th century Eastern Europe. A secret my Grandmother thought she had forever concealed eventually unravelled but not without a major road block and several twists and turns. The magic of genetic DNA testing ultimately revealed the answer to my question and so much more. A genealogical adventure my Grandmother would never have imagined.”

Toronto Branch Meetings

The Ontario Historical County Maps Project Speakers: Joan Winearls & Marcel Fortin This talk will describe a major new mapping and indexing project of the names of landowners on the county maps of Ontario issued[...]

Speaker: Ellen Maki Today many of us think of gardening as a pleasurable pastime, but in the nineteenth century it was a profession in which many men and women were employed. While researching her family,[...]

Speaker: Sherilyn L. Bell, BSc UE This lecture will provide an overview of a genealogy covering the early 1900s. The subjects are not relatives of the speaker. What started as a brief distraction from regular[...]

Courses starting & Workshops

This course is jointly sponsored by the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Toronto Reference Library, the Toronto Public Library, and the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. The course will be on three Tuesdays:[...]

This tour is jointly sponsored by the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Toronto Reference Library, the Toronto Public Library, and the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. This course is now full. Please contact[...]

This course is jointly sponsored by the Archives of Ontario and the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. The course will be on three Thursdays: January 26, February 2, & 9, 2017 Registration is required. Registration[...]

This tour is jointly sponsored by the Marilyn & Charles Baillie Special Collections Centre at the Toronto Reference Library, the Toronto Public Library, and the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. This course[...]

Did you know?

That Toronto Branch OGS has more than 600 members? That members get a discount on publications, and course and workshop registration fees? And that Toronto Branch belongs to the Federation of Genealogical Societies, which means our members can also subscribe to findmypast.com at special rates?

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